Notable Quotables

The reality is that financial markets are self-destabilizing; occasionally they tend toward disequilibrium, not equilibrium.

- George Soros

The power of an air force is terrific when there is nothing to oppose it.

- Winston Churchill

To make meetings less boring, leaders must look for legitimate reasons to provoke and uncover relevant, constructive ideological conflict.

- Patrick M. Lencioni

I believe in God, family, and McDonald’s. And in the office, that order is reversed.

- Ray Kroc

Before you can inspire with emotion, you must be swamped with it yourself. Before you can move their tears, your own must flow. To convince them, you must yourself, believe.

- Winston Churchill

Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.

- Steve Jobs

Like my friend Warren Buffett, I feel particularly lucky to do something every day that I love to do. He calls it ‘tap-dancing to work.

- Bill Gates

HE RICH DON’T WORK FOR MONEY The poor and the middle class work for money. The rich have money work for them.

- Robert Kiyosaki

If a person makes a statement that you think is wrong—yes, even that you know is wrong—isn’t it better to begin by saying: Well, now, look. I thought otherwise, but I may be wrong. I frequently am. And if I am wrong, I want to be put right. Let’s examine the facts.” There’s magic, positive magic, in such phrases as: I may be wrong. I frequently am. Let’s examine the facts.

- Dale Carnegie

Ego stops you from getting things done and getting people to work with you. That’s why I firmly believe that ego and success are not compatible.

- Harvey Mackay

Getting fired, despite sometimes coming as a surprise and leaving you scrambling to recover, is often a godsend. Most people aren’t lucky enough to get fired and die a slow spiritual death over 30-40 years of tolerating the mediocre.

- Timothy Ferriss

Winners are not afraid of losing. But losers are. Failure is part of the process of success. People who avoid failure also avoid success.

- Robert Kiyosaki

In business, equilibrium means stasis, and stasis means death.

- Peter Thiel

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.

- Winston Churchill

Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones.

- Benjamin Franklin

I don’t blame you one iota for feeling as you do. If I were you I would undoubtedly feel just as you do.(…) You can say that and be 100 percent sincere, because if you were the other person you, of course, would feel just as he does (…) Suppose you had inherited the same body and temperament and mind (…) Suppose you had had his environment and experiences. You would then be precisely what he was – and where he was. For it is those things -and only those things – that made him what he was. (…) You deserve very little credit for being what you are – and remember, the people who come to you irritated, bigoted, unreasoning, deserve very little discredit for being what they are.

- Dale Carnegie

I never wanted to be an entrepreneur. I actually wanted to be Bruce Lee.

- Jack Dorsey

Stories let us lie to ourselves. And those lies satisfy our desires.

- Seth Godin

I don’t like typing messages on my phone. Some people get used to it.

- Bill Gates

You cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything.

- John C. Maxwell

If you want to understand what drives Cisco, look at our approach to customers. The manner in which we serve our customers defines our company values and demonstrates our priorities. Cisco is proud to be honored with this important certification that recognizes the foundation of our culture — the importance that we place on ensuring our customers are successful with Cisco technology.

- John Chambers

I don’t want to just preach to the church. I feel like I have a broader message.

- Joel Olsteen

PR is gift-wrapping. If you package a bracelet in a Tiffany box, it will have a higher perceived value than if you presented it in a Kmart box.

- Michael Levine

All the adversity I’ve had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me… You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.

- Walt Disney

There is one quality which one must possess to win, and that is definiteness of purpose, the knowledge of what one wants, and a burning desire to possess it.

- Napoleon Hill

I cringe at backstory. Because it never quite explains or gets into some psychological thing that is never quite right and never quite the truth and who knows why someone is some way.

- Steve Martin

If you are not in the process of becoming the person you want to be, you are automatically engaged in becoming the person you don’t want to be.

- Dale Carnegie

If I want a better-than-average career, I can’t simply ‘go with the flow’ and get it. Most people do just that: they wish for an outcome but make no intention-driven actions toward that outcome. If they would just do something most people would find that they get some version of the outcome they’re looking for. That’s been my secret. Stop wishing and start doing.

- Timothy Ferriss

It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link of the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.

- Winston Churchill

Since time is your most valuable asset, it’s odd to spend it working with people who don’t envision any long-term future together. If you can’t count durable relationships among the fruits of your time at work, you haven’t invested your time well—even in purely financial terms.

- Peter Thiel

People still think of me as a cartoonist, but the only thing I lift a pen or pencil for these days is to sign a contract, a check, or an autograph.

- Walt Disney

We are in the process of creating a group that has a broader business mix, better quality income streams and a stronger balance sheet. In doing so, our risk profile is spread out and we can better explore the growth potential across our five core businesses – property, hotels, infrastructure, services and telecommunications.

- Cheng Yu-tung

You need to live every day like it could be your last.

- Joel Olsteen

To do the most good requires saying no to pressures to stray, and the discipline to stop doing what does not fit.

- Peter Drucker

It’s nice to be important, but more important to be nice. You don’t know who your top customers will be five years from now or where you will be in 10 years. You may have a fancy title, but you will always need help from the people around you.

- Harvey Mackay

One of my goals is to inspire everyone I meet to become a better person.

- George Foreman

They didn’t use discussion as a sham process to let people have their say” so that they could buy in” to a predetermined decision. The process was more like a heated scientific debate, with people engaged in a search for the best answers.

- James C. Collins

But no parties could live under such labels as Petitioners and Abhorrers. Instead of naming themselves they named each other. The term “Whig” had described a sour, bigoted, canting, money-grubbing Scots Presbyterian. Irish Papist bandits ravaging estates and manor-houses had been called “Tories”.

- Winston Churchill

Art is what we call…the thing an artist does. It’s not the medium or the oil or the price or whether it hangs on a wall or you eat it. What matters, what makes it art, is that the person who made it overcame the resistance, ignored the voice of doubt and made something worth making. Something risky. Something human. Art is not in the …eye of the beholder. It’s in the soul of the artist.

- Seth Godin

Desire is what takes the hot water of mediocrity and turns it into the steam of outstanding success.

- Zig Ziglar

The world’s major metropolitan cities are more or less the same.

- Tadashi Yanai

Wealth, like happiness, is never attained when sought after directly. It comes as a by-product of providing a useful service.

- Henry Ford

Christopher Colombus’ big mistake was that he was looking for a trade route to China, and accidentally bumped into America, the richest, most powerful country in the world.

- Robert Kiyosaki

The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.

- Vince Lombardi

Why do I drive a truck? What am I supposed to haul my dogs around in, a Rolls-Royce?

- Sam Walton

What kind of people do they think we are? Is it possible they do not realize that we shall never cease to persevere against them until they have been taught a lesson which they and the world will never forget?

- Winston Churchill

If you go out looking for friends, you’re going to find they are very scarce. If you go out to be a friend, you’ll find them everywhere.

- Zig Ziglar

True happiness… is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.

- Helen Keller

I resolved to stop accumulating and begin the infinitely more serious and difficult task of wise distribution.

- Andrew Carnegie

The most practical, beautiful, workable philosophy in the world won’t work if you won’t.

- Zig Ziglar

It is my practice to try to understand how valuable something is by trying to imagine myself without it.

- Herb Kelleher

I support health care for people. I want people well taken care of. But I also want health care that we can afford as a country. I have people and friends closing down their businesses because of Obamacare.

- Donald Trump

Differentiation favors people who are energetic and extroverted and undervalues people who are shy and introverted, even if they are talented.

- Jack Welch

The future of Windows is to let the computer see, listen and even learn.

- Bill Gates

The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.

- Peter Drucker

A lot of people quit looking for work as soon as they find a job.

- Zig Ziglar

It’s the moments where you feel most like hiding or dying that you can make the biggest difference as a CEO.

- Ben Horowitz

Arguing over process has become a way to endlessly defer making concrete plans for a better future.

- Peter Thiel

There are not many companies in China that dare to say in public, ‘We don’t offer bribes’, or companies that operate only by market rules.

- Wang Jianlin

If you want to build a dynasty, you need to always be focused on getting better and beating last year’s performance in everything you do. You want to eliminate peaks and valleys, what we call boom, splat, and go for a good steady incline.

- David Novak

We are the most powerful nation on earth. No external power, no terrorist organization, can defeat us. But we can defeat ourselves by getting caught in a quagmire.

- George Soros

You have to motivate yourself with challenges. That’s how you know you’re still alive.

- Jerry Seinfeld

The most obvious clue was sartorial: cleantech executives were running around wearing suits and ties. This was a huge red flag, because real technologists wear T-shirts and jeans. So we instituted a blanket rule: pass on any company whose founders dressed up for pitch meetings.

- Peter Thiel

Andrew Carnegie believed the formula (of Think & Grow Rich) should be taught in all public schools and colleges, and expressed the opinion that if it were properly taught it would so revolutionize the entire education system that the time spent in school could be reduced to less than half….As far as (formal) schooling is concerned, many of the (great american business) men had very little.

- Napoleon Hill

I still get real nervous when I go in front of more than two people.

- Phil Knight

I don’t like accidental success. It’s what Bill Gates calls ‘random,’ a term he uses with the opposite of respect.

- Masayoshi Son

I’ve always been – you know, my personality is motivating and encouraging. And so I’m just being who God made me to be.

- Joel Olsteen

Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.

- Socrates

Nothing sedates rationality like large doses of effortless money

- Warren Buffett

My biggest crisis is that I don’t understand what young people like.

- Ma Huateng

The minute there’s a map, there is no art. Paint by numbers is not art. Paint by numbers is a mechanical activity.

- Seth Godin

Some countries, like Saudi Arabia, where the population growth is very high, whereby you don’t have the mortgage low yet. Still the demand outstrips supply by much.

- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud

I’ve always leaned toward a feminine, funky style, even in business settings. I used to paint my nails blue in 1993, before it was mainstream.

- Sara Blakely

If something’s important enough, you should try. Even if you – the probable outcome is failure.

- Elon Musk

Its obvious that we don’t know one millionth of one percent about anything.

- Thomas Edison

The interview process takes twelve to fifteen hoursof your team’s time. This process is expensive for your team, so you should vet people in advance. A technique I use is to email the references and say, Rate this person one to ten. No one’s going to reply a five or a three by email; that means they hate the candidate. Call me is usually the response for a sub-seven rating. At the same time, nobody is going to reply with a ten. What you’re really looking for is a bunch of eights and nines. This is an exceptionally quick referencing system when you’re trying to triage a list.

- Reid Hoffman

Passion can overcome fear – the fear of losing, of failing, of being traditional.

- Seth Godin

The ability of a successful company to add functionality to its product has long been upheld.

- Bill Gates

Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force. Mourn them do not. Miss them do not. Attachment leads to jealously. The shadow of greed, that is.

- Yoda

Company cultures are like country cultures. Never try to change one. Try, instead, to work with what you’ve got.

- Peter Drucker

What is Oracle? It’s people. We rely on our HR department to build this organization, to help find those people, to help grow those people.

- Larry Ellison

Of this I am quite sure. If we open up a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future.

- Winston Churchill

We had gotten people’s attention. So a lot of American shoe distributors were going to Japan and telling Onitsuka, ‘Well, if this two-bit outfit up in the woods in Oregon can do this kind of business, wait till you get somebody that’s really in the business.

- Phil Knight

Journalists should think of themselves as outside the Establishment, and owners can’t be too worried about what they’re told at their country clubs.

- Rupert Murdoch

Measles will always show you if someone isn’t doing a good job on vaccinations. Kids will start dying of measles.

- Bill Gates

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